Text in bp_adminbar_notifications_menu()

I’ve got a custom menu bar and added bp_adminbar_notifications_menu() to it.
This echoes perfectly except for the always visible menu text, this reads ‘notifications 2′ instead of just ‘2’. I also noticed the markup is different from buddypress.org as well; I’ve got no <span> element inside the a .

How is this possible and more importantly, how can I remove the text ‘notifications’?

I tried to find a filter or even a ‘get’ function to search and remove the string.
I understood that making a change in a language file (I’m using a Dutch one) would require me to replace the whole language file with my own?